Team
Cleveland Browns
AFC North
A roster this lopsided is the hardest kind to fix and the easiest to misjudge. The defense is good enough to keep almost every game close, which masks how historically bad the offense has been and burns the prime years of an elite, expensive front. Cleveland isn't a bad team with holes; it is two completely different teams wearing the same jersey.
The 2025 season and what comes next
The widest split in football: Cleveland fields the NFL's #1 defense and its #32 offense.
AnomalyMost extreme offense-vs-defense EPA rank gap, 2023-2025 (reg season)
| Team | Off EPA rank | Def EPA rank | Rank gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| CLE | 32nd | 1st | 31 |
| SF | 2nd | 24th | 22 |
| MIN | 25th | 3rd | 22 |
| HOU | 23rd | 2nd | 21 |
| WAS | 12th | 31st | 19 |
The two ends of Cleveland's roster, EPA/play 2023-2025
| Unit | EPA/play | NFL rank |
|---|---|---|
| Offense | -0.170 | 32nd (last) |
| Defense (allowed) | -0.088 | 1st (best) |
No team in football is pulled as hard in two directions. Cleveland's defense allows a league-best -0.088 EPA per play while its offense produces a league-worst -0.170 EPA per play, a 31-rank chasm between the two units. The next-most-divided teams, San Francisco and Minnesota, sit 9 ranks behind that. One half of this roster would win a Super Bowl; the other half can't get out of its own way.
Why it matters. A roster this lopsided is the hardest kind to fix and the easiest to misjudge. The defense is good enough to keep almost every game close, which masks how historically bad the offense has been and burns the prime years of an elite, expensive front. Cleveland isn't a bad team with holes; it is two completely different teams wearing the same jersey.
How the Browns play
On third down, Cleveland's defense is the best in football and its offense is the worst. Same down, opposite poles.
SplitWorst third-down conversion offenses, 2023-2025 (reg season)
| Rank | Team | 3rd-down conv % |
|---|---|---|
| 32 (last) | CLE | 32.2% |
| 31 | NYJ | 33.8% |
| 30 | TEN | 35.7% |
| 29 | CAR | 35.7% |
Best third-down stop defenses, 2023-2025 (reg season)
| Rank | Team | 3rd-down stop % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (best) | CLE | 65.5% |
| 2 | DEN | 64.4% |
| 3 | DET | 63.8% |
| 4 | HOU | 62.8% |
The cruelest mirror in the league. When Cleveland's offense faces third down it converts a league-worst 32.2% of the time. When Cleveland's defense faces third down it gets off the field a league-best 65.5% of the time. The same situation that ends the Browns' own drives is the one their defense relishes. Both extremes, simultaneously, on the most pivotal down in football.
Why it matters. Third down is where games are decided, and Cleveland lives at both ends of it. The defense's elite stop rate is why the Browns stay competitive despite the offense; the offense's last-place conversion rate is why those same games slip away. And the fix is upstream: third-down conversion is mostly a byproduct of early-down success, so the real disease is an offense that keeps arriving at third-and-long.
Cleveland's defense is #1 in the NFL everywhere except the one place that scores points: the red zone, where it is dead last.
AnomalyCleveland defense, 2023-2025 (reg season): elite outside, leaky inside
| Zone | Metric | NFL rank |
|---|---|---|
| Outside the 20 (EPA/play allowed) | -0.114 | 1st (best) |
| Inside the 20 (red-zone TD% allowed) | 23.4% | 32nd (worst) |
Highest red-zone TD% allowed, 2023-2025 (reg season)
| Rank | Team | RZ TD% allowed |
|---|---|---|
| 32 (worst) | CLE | 23.4% |
| 31 | DAL | 22.7% |
| 30 | MIA | 21.6% |
| 29 | CAR | 21.4% |
Bend-but-don't-break, inverted. Between the 20s, no defense in football is stingier than Cleveland's (-0.114 EPA/play allowed, 1st). But once an offense crosses the 20, the Browns allow a touchdown on 23.4% of red-zone snaps, the worst rate in the NFL. They smother you for 80 yards, then hand you the last 20.
Why it matters. The classic elite defense holds firm exactly where points are cheapest to prevent. Cleveland does the reverse: it dominates the open field, where yards are plentiful but harmless, and collapses in the red zone, where a single play is worth four points instead of three. The consolation from history is that red-zone finishing rates, good and bad, barely carry over between seasons, so this is the flaw most likely to fix itself.
The Garrett pass rush hit a new gear: 53 sacks in 2025 and the NFL's #2 sack rate over three years.
ComparisonHighest defensive sack rate, 2023-2025 (reg season)
| Rank | Team | Sack rate | Total sacks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DEN | 8.9% | 173 |
| 2 | CLE | 8.6% | 143 |
| 3 | HOU | 7.9% | 142 |
| 4 | DAL | 7.8% | 133 |
Cleveland sacks per season (reg season)
| Season | Sacks | Sack rate |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 34 | 6.1% |
| 2023 | 49 | 8.4% |
| 2024 | 41 | 7.5% |
| 2025 | 53 | 9.8% |
Cleveland gets to the quarterback on 8.6% of dropbacks, 2nd in the NFL over the last three years, a hair behind Denver. And the pressure is still climbing: the Browns piled up 53 sacks in 2025 at a 9.8% rate, up from 34 in 2022, with Myles Garrett accounting for 23 of the 53 himself. While the offense cratered, the front got nastier, which is exactly why the defense stays elite despite a leaky red zone.
Why it matters. Sacks power Cleveland's open-field dominance: pressure on early and middle downs is what produces the league-best EPA allowed between the 20s. Two cautions ride along, though. Sack totals are the least repeatable defensive stat, so penciling in a rerun of 53 is exactly what history warns against, and a rush this dependent on one transcendent player concentrates the risk in a single hamstring.
Cleveland can't complete a deep ball to save its life, but it takes yours away. The deep-ball split runs both ways.
SplitCleveland on 20+ air-yard throws, 2023-2025 (reg season)
| Side | Deep EPA/play | NFL rank |
|---|---|---|
| Offense (throwing deep) | -0.068 | 32nd (worst) |
| Defense (defending deep) | +0.237 | 7th (best) |
Worst deep-passing offenses by EPA, 2023-2025 (reg season)
| Rank | Team | Deep EPA/play | Deep comp % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 (last) | CLE | -0.068 | 29.0% |
| 31 | ARI | -0.012 | 31.6% |
| 30 | NYJ | +0.031 | 29.0% |
| 29 | LV | +0.077 | 32.0% |
Cleveland's offense is the only team in football with a negative EPA on deep throws (-0.068, dead last), completing just 29.0% of its 20-plus-air-yard attempts. The defense is the opposite: it ranks 7th in the NFL at limiting deep-ball damage (+0.237 EPA allowed), holding opponents to a 31.3% deep completion rate. The shot play that the Browns whiff on is the same one they erase for everyone else.
Why it matters. The deep ball is the cheapest source of explosive offense, and Cleveland's split on it explains both units perfectly. The offense's last-place deep efficiency lets defenses crowd the line and suffocate the short game, compounding the third-down failures. The defense's top-7 deep coverage is the back-end complement to the elite pass rush.
Nobody goes for it on 4th down more than Cleveland, and almost nobody converts less. Aggression without reward.
SplitMost 4th-down go-for-it attempts, 2018-2025 (reg season)
| Rank | Team | Attempts | Conv % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CAR | 242 | 52.5% |
| 2 | CLE | 238 | 47.9% |
| 3 | NYG | 237 | 51.1% |
Worst 4th-down conversion rates, 2018-2025 (reg season)
| Rank | Team | Conv % | Attempts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 (last) | NYJ | 45.9% | 209 |
| 31 | CLE | 47.9% | 238 |
| 30 | JAX | 49.3% | 209 |
Cleveland goes for it on 4th down 238 times, 2nd-most in the NFL, and cashes in just 47.9% of the time, 31st-worst. Carolina goes for it slightly more but converts at a far healthier 52.5%. The Browns are the league's purest case of high volume, low return: they keep rolling the dice and keep coming up short, the same offensive failure that defines their third downs, now on the down where there's no punt to bail them out.
Why it matters. A great defense lets a coach take risks freely, so Cleveland gives the ball back to its own offense on 4th down more than almost anyone. But a last-place offense is the wrong unit to count on: the second-highest volume of attempts paired with the second-worst conversion rate means those failed attempts routinely hand opponents a short field. The aggression is rational given the defense; the personnel makes it backfire.
The record books
Twenty-three sacks. Myles Garrett didn't chase the single-season record in 2025, he passed it.
MilestoneMost sacks in a season since 1999 (reg season)
| Rank | Player | Season | Sacks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Myles Garrett | 2025 | 23.0 |
| 2 | Michael Strahan | 2001 | 22.5 |
| 3 | T.J. Watt | 2021 | 22.5 |
| 4 | Jared Allen | 2011 | 22.0 |
| 5 | Justin Houston | 2014 | 22.0 |
For 24 years the single-season ceiling was 22.5 sacks, set by Michael Strahan in 2001 and matched by T.J. Watt in 2021. In 2025 Myles Garrett took down 23 quarterbacks, clearing the shared record outright, and he did it for a 5-12 team whose games were rarely close enough to force opponents into obvious passing scripts. It is the most sacks in any season in our data, which reaches back to 1999.
Why it matters. Record sack seasons usually belong to players on winning teams, because leading defenses feed on opponents forced to throw. Garrett breaking the mark on a five-win team inverts that: he generated a record rush without the game-script tailwind that helped every other name on this list. It is the strongest single-season pass-rushing claim in a quarter century of data.
Twenty-three losing seasons in twenty-seven years. The cellar has a long lease in Cleveland.
RareFewest wins since 1999 (reg season)
| Rank | Team | Record | Losing seasons | Winning seasons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | CLE | 146-290 | 23 of 27 | 4 |
| 31 | LV | 172-265 | 18 of 27 | 5 |
| 30 | HOU (since 2002) | 174-214 | 11 of 24 | 11 |
| 29 | DET | 175-260 | 17 of 27 | 9 |
Since returning to the league in 1999, Cleveland has won 146 regular-season games, fewest in football by 26, with a losing record in 23 of 27 seasons. The four exceptions: 2002, 2007, 2020 and 2023. The Browns have one playoff win in that span, the 48-37 wild-card night in Pittsburgh in January 2021. The league's machinery of parity, draft capital, soft schedules, regression to the mean, has spent a quarter century failing to lift one franchise off the floor.
Why it matters. Parity is supposed to make sustained failure impossible, and for 31 franchises it roughly has. Cleveland is the outlier that proves the machinery only works when a franchise converts its chances: repeated quarterback misses and coaching resets burned each rebound before it compounded. That is the deep context for every Browns rebuild conversation, including this one, and also why the annual worst-to-first examples still matter: the door is unlocked, it has just never been walked through.
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